ietf-smime
[Top] [All Lists]

RE: Working Group Last Call:draft-ietf-smime-certdist-04.txt

1999-10-26 09:19:17


-----Original Message-----
From: phoffman [SMTP:phoffman(_at_)imc(_dot_)org]
Sent: Monday, October 25, 1999 5:09 PM
To: ietf-smime
Cc: phoffman
Subject: Re: Working Group Last Call:draft-ietf-smime-certdist-04.txt

At 09:51 AM 10/25/99 -0400, David P. Kemp wrote:
Since LDAP directories have both user and CA certificate attributes,

Agree.

and LDAP is the Internet mechanism of choice for publishing and retrieving
certificates,

Disagree. We are far from understanding how certificates are and will be 
published. LDAP certificate retrieval is well-defined, but not yet widely 
implemented, particularly for S/MIME MUAs.
[O'Malley, Bartley]  
Is this sufficient grounds to junk it? If it is not widely implemented yet 
because of inherent problems, then fine, but if it is simply due to its 
newness(my vote) we risk delaying the implementation of either by muddying the 
water with the introduction of a second.

 it would seem that a draft which proposes an alternative
cert publishing mechanism as an Internet Standard would have a high
burden of proof to justify the duplication.

If this draft was coming out three years from now, yes. As it is, we have 
so little understanding of S/MIME customer needs, I don't think having an 
alternative mechanism is harmful.

  The IESG is relatively
strict in discouraging the definition of overlapping mechanisms.

We only wish. :-) A topically relevant counterexample: S/MIME and OpenPGP.

[O'Malley, Bartley] 
Pause for a moment... Do you really?(wish that is)

If you did, why would you support the introduction of an overlapping standard.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium

<<attachment: WINMAIL.DAT>>